A Randomized controlled trial of SMS Intervention in Inner Mongolia with Type 2 Diabetes (Preprint)

Abstract

Nonadherence to self-management is common among patients with type 2 diabetes (T2D) and often leads to severe complications. Short messages service (SMS) technology provides a practical medium for delivering content to address patients’ barriers to adherence.

The aim of this study was to design a series of SMS intervention templates, and to evaluate the feasibility of the SMS through a short message quality evaluation questionnaire and to explore the intervention effect.

1. The SMS evaluation was assessed through the 10-point scale SMS Quality Assessment Questionnaire. 2. A randomized controlled trial was conducted. The patients in SMS intervention were randomly divided into intervention group (IG) and control group (CG), which received evaluated messages education and regular education, respectively. The intervention was divided into four phases, a telephone interview was conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of the intervention after each phase. The main outcome were changes in blood glucose and blood pressure (BP) and their control rates, and secondary outcomes were changes in diet, physical activity, weight control and other health-related behaviors.

1. SMS design: 42 SMS text messages were designed to promote healthy behaviors in different stages of behavior change, covering four key domains: healthy knowledge, diet, physical activity, living habits and weight control. 2. SMS evaluation: The average score for healthy knowledge, diet, physical activity, living habits, weight control were 8.0 (SD 0.7), 8.5 (SD 0.6), 7.9 (SD 1.0), 8.0 (SD 0.7), and 8.4 (SD 0.9), respectively. 3. SMS intervention: A total of 146 people completed the four-phase intervention, including 72 in the CG and 74 in the IG. At the end of the intervention period, in the IG, the decrease in fasting blood glucose (FBG, mean 1.5mg/l [SD 3.0] vs 0.4 mg/l [SD 2.8], P=0.011), postprandial blood glucose (PBG, mean 5.8mg/l [SD 5.1] vs 4.2 mg/l [SD 4.7], P=0.028), systolic blood pressure (SBP, mean 9.1mmHg [SD 15.8] vs 2.2mmHg [SD 13.3], P=0.025), FBG control rate (45.9% vs 31.0%, P=0.046) and PBG control rate (57.8% vs 33.7%, P=0.002) were better than the CG. In self-behavior management, the changes of the weight control, diet and physical activity in the IG were better than those in the CG, and the average score of the IG was greater than that of the CG (1.1 vs [-0.3] ), P0.001).

The overall quality of SMS content is higher to meet the needs of patients; Diet, physical activity and weight control message need to be focused on push. SMS interventions contribute to the management of blood glucose and BP, and help to promote a series of healthy-related behaviors.